oathbreakers | [012//Audio & Commentlog?]

Plague Star?

[She's barely heard half of what he said, and for the parts that she has heard... She wasn't there. She couldn't help them. But then she couldn't have helped them even if she had been there. She had been killed by a stranger with little more than a blow to the head.

Helpless.

In the way.]

It's okay.

[It isn't.]

[It's not, and he knows it's not. He can't help himself now; Riku reaches out with the intent of placing his hand on her shoulder.]

Kairi, no.

I should've been there. With you.

You see? And that's only one time. What else aren't they telling you? How do you know when they're lying to you?

[Kairi leans into the contact, but otherwise doesn't move. The lift has come and gone and they are still standing here. Whether it's at that, or out of some kind of necessity, Kairi manages a watery smile. But she doesn't have it in her to lie.]

What would you have done? It was so fast. He would have got you too.

I'm glad you were somewhere else.

[She doesn't want to be protected all the time, especially if it puts her friends in danger.]

I don't know, when you're not tell me things. But I know that when I need to know them, I will.

[He doesn't deserve you as a friend, Kairi. He really doesn't. The way she reacts to his touch and the look she gives him mean that Riku's going to be reaching out to pull her into a full hug if she'll let him, holding her tight.]

I could have done something. Anything would have been better than...

[He can't say it. Someone else can, though!]

Than hearing that post on the network when you got back, he'd rather die a hundred times than see you hurt once, blah-blah-blah. This has gotten boring fast. Who knew it'd be so easy to break the princess?

[Riku succeeds in holding back the hiss of annoyance that had been threatening. But his arms tighten around Kairi ~~if they're there~~, silently urging her not to listen to it.]

Any ideas on how to shut that thing up yet?

[Kairi doesn't argue. He wasn't there; he can't know. Instead she lets him hug her, and after a moment, hugs him back.

She ignores the shadow, though it's words lend a genuine edge to her smile. She may be hurting, but she'd far from broken.]

Light. Lots of light.

Bright light to banish the shadows, huh?

[But Riku thinks he has a better plan. He loosens his hold on Kairi, though he doesn't let go entirely. His arm still around her shoulders, perhaps.]

Before we do that, I have an idea.

It won't work.

Wanna try it?

You're stupid if you think something like that's gonna work! Maybe Sora was right about you!

[But Riku's not listening, instead smiling back at Kairi as he nods his head back the way they'd come.]

Edited 2010-10-23 12:04 (UTC)

[Kairi hesitates, but then the shadow speaks and her mind is made up. She nods.]

Mm.

[And she starts walking, following the direction he'd given.]

[The shadow's protests only make Riku more certain of his plan. They head back to his room, where Riku shuts the door and grabs a couple towels from the bathroom. The shadow is still talking, angry now, and Riku finds himself having to interrupt it more and more often so that it doesn't let something slip. He covers up the porthole, covers anything that would let light in from outside, jams the crack under the door with a towel and eventually rejoins Kairi near the door.

And he smiles again.]

And I'll bet you never said a word to her about the--

Ready to see if this works?

--hiding for two full days. You were still you--you were just older!

[Riku snaps off the lights and plunges the room into total darkness. Darkness, where there's no light to make a shadow--not even a tiny one hiding under his feet.]

[Kairi watches, bemused, as Riku darts about the room, his shadow prattling away. Her attention divided between it's words, his actions and her own thoughts, she does miss some of what it's saying.

And then he flicks of the light and there is a moment of clear, wonderful silence.

Kairi sinks to the floor, smiling into the dark, her back pressed against the door.]

I can check the network, if you like. This could be happening to a lot of people. They might know when it's going to end.

[The communicator will make light. She could go into the bathroom though.]

[At last. Silence. Riku's grinning into the darkness, leaning back against the doorframe himself. For a moment he doesn't even answer Kairi, he's enjoying the sound of silence so much.]

Sure, if you want. You think anyone will have a clue?

There's only one way to find out.

[And getting up again, she follows the wall around and into the bathroom.

She isn't gone long.]

Nothing. I guess we'll just have to wait...

[Kairi pauses, wondering how long that wait would be and if she dare say what's on her mind.]

But then, she was never one to spend long dithering over things.]

Riku...?

[While Kairi's gone, Riku relishes in his hard-won peace. There's the tiniest bit of glow coming from the door, but it's barely enough for him to even hear a whisper from the weakest shadow it produces, and it's easily ignored. It disappears when she comes back, the source of light gone, forgotten already.]

Yeah, Kairi?

About what it said before; you know if you died, it would hurt more than anything anyone on this ship could do to me... Right?

[There is the smallest hesitation, and while there's a touch of irony in her next words, it's clearly forced.]

So don't do anything stupid, okay?

[Welcome to The Long Silence! Your hosts for today will be Riku and Kairi. Because while he'll accept what Kairi's saying to him, he also knows he'd die to keep her out of harm's way without a moment's thought.]

Hey, since when have I been the one to go off and do stupid things?

[But his joking tone won't soothe it all away, and he knows that.]

I can't promise anything, Kairi.

But I'll try not to go off and get myself killed, all right?

Hmmm... Okay.

[She knows him, and she knows this ship; it is honestly the best response she could have hoped for.

They're probably going to be here a while. Kairi feels her way around the room until she finds the bed, and then sits on the floor next to it, leaning back against the bedframe.]

What did it mean, "hiding for two days"?

[Riku winces at that, glad she can't see him in the dark.]

It's...

[He trails off, realizing he was about to brush it off as being nothing again. Normally it wouldn't faze him to do so a bit, but today was different. Today he had the words of his shadow looming overhead.

Riku sighs.]

It wasn't hiding. Not really. It was back when a lot of things happened, one right after the other. Remember? You were a boy for a couple days, I was a girl... right before that happened, there was another... change. I think most people on the boat got their ages changed, right?

[Another pause.]

It was during that time.

Oh?

[For a moment, she's left wondering if he'll elaborate, and then some of the pieces fall into place.]

Oh.

You were older.

[The next question hangs in the air, unsaid; how much older?]

Maybe. I don't know.

[He glances down at his hands in the dark, as though he could see more than the faintest of outlines there.]

I wasn't me. I was... somebody else.

Kairi...? What happens?

[Kairi's breath catches in her throat. The question throws her and so her only immediate answer is the truth.]

I don't know exactly.

[But it's not good enough, and it would be lying to leave it at that.]

When I woke up in Hollow Bastion, Sora disappeared. There was a man there, with white hair and yellow eyes. He called me princess.

[Like Riku's shadow. Kairi suppresses a shiver.]

And then you appeared and told us to run. But you weren't really there. You were a part of him, somehow. You held him of, and we left, me and Sora's friends.

I pulled Sora back and we left for Traverse Town. Sora was going to go back to find you but... You'd lost your heart, Riku.

[She stops, her voice quavering. But she's not done. She can't leave it there.]

[A man with white hair and yellow eyes... Riku slowly releases a breath he hadn't even known he'd been holding. That was the man he'd seen in the mirror--tanned skin, long, white hair, yellow eyes, and an almost -sinister- appearance to him.

He loses his... heart? Then why had he become that person on that day of the shipwide change? He should have become a Heartless, fallen into the darkness... he shouldn't have had an older body at all. He should have had a Heartless's body. Shouldn't he?

Not to mention... it hurts, hearing that he loses his heart. Riku makes his way over to his bed slowly, taking a seat on the edge of the mattress and rubbing his face. He'd sworn he wouldn't let the darkness get the better of him. He'd promised himself, and he'd reassured Kairi, and he had -believed- it, too, believed that he was too strong to have his heart taken. Maleficent had reinforced that, always speaking of his strength and granting him more power over the darkness. Once he'd considered that a good thing, but now he wasn't so sure.]

So... that's who I turned into?

[He's quiet now, his ego gone. He's hearing his weaknesses, his mistakes, all of them dragged out to be put on display. -Sora- wouldn't have made those mistakes--but that thought is quickly put out of his mind with a frown. He turns into someone else.

He turns into someone else who threatens Kairi.]

...what happens then?

Edited 2010-10-23 15:05 (UTC)

[Kairi hears the mattress creak above her and to the left. She nods, and then shakes her head, forgetting for a moment that it's dark and Riku can't see her. Riku's questions throw her, not because she isn't expecting them, but because he's still talking as though what has happened is in the future and will happen again.

Kairi's lost track of the number of times she's promised him and herself that it won't.]

His name's Ansem, Sora said. He said you fought over the keyblade too. And when he won, you disappeared. The next time he saw you, you were someone else. I don't know what happened after that. He went back to Hollow Bastion to find you and-...

I stayed behind.

[She can't keep the brittle edge out of her voice. She had accepted it, at the time, that she must stay. But after today's events, the memory bites at her, that she couldn't be there. She doesn't know what happened.]

I didn't see you again. I got pulled into a dark abyss, and then all the worlds were released from darkness. And... Well I forgot a lot of things for a while.

I didn't forget you. No-one did. But... I don't know what happened.

[...this is a lot to handle.

Riku allows himself to fall backwards and sprawl over the bed, staring up at the darkened ceiling in thought. He's inherently grateful now for the disappearance of his shadow; he can already imagine just what it would say to him--he can hear it in his own mind now, no matter how hard he tries to banish the thoughts.

"You still refuse to admit it? You've been refusing to admit it from the start--you're wrong, you're -wrong-, you've always been the one in the wrong."

With some difficulty, he pushes the thoughts from mind, arms going behind his head as a pillow.]

I wonder...

Do you think we can really change things?

They already have changed.

Even if things go back to the way they were... Well, they can't go back to the way they were.

[She pauses, reminded of something that, in her haste to see Riku's "shadow," she'd forgotten.]

I have something for you.

Maybe you're right.

[He's grateful when Kairi changes the topic; things were getting a little bit too heavy there for a moment.]

Really? Like what?

First the captain's ball, and now this... I wasn't kidding when I told you people are gonna talk, Kairi.

Oh?

[She's grinning.]

Then I better go.

[She gets to her feet and starts toward the door.]

If gifts might make people talk, then staying in your room definitely will.

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